Page 17 of The Bookworm

“Where is she?” I ask, looking around for Merrit. After spending several hours in a holding cell, hers is the only face I want to see right now.

Sawyer stands and looks at me hesitantly, clearly holding something back. “I tried to stop her, but she wouldn't listen to me. She went to the hospital to talk to her dad about this.”

“Fuck me, we have to go after her,” I say, immediately rushing out of the building to get to Sawyer's car. If Ben was willing to lie about me attempting to kill him to get back at her, what will he do if he actually sees her?

Thankfully, the traffic on a Saturday morning at 6:00 a.m. isn't anything to contend with, and we make it to Pembroke’s only emergency room in minutes. Both of us rush inside and stop by the admittance desk to find out where Ben's room is, and they force both of us to take out visitor passes to see him.

We walk through the hospital to find his room as quickly as we can. It isn't until I realize we’re in the intensive care unit that the reality of the situation sets in. Whatever actually happened to him must have been bad, and I might not need to worry about him retaliating against Merrit.

Eventually, we find him in his room with Merrit sitting on a stool beside him, watching with a strange mixture of emotions on her face.

She doesn't look up when we walk in the room. Sawyer decides to give us some space, so he runs to the vending machines.

“Hey, what's going on?” I ask as I kneel on the floor beside her. She looks at me and offers a faint smile.

“I've always known something like this was bound to happen,” she says in a meek voice. Her throat is dry and her voice shaky as she looks at her badly beaten father. Bruises cover nearly every inch of his face and arms, and it seems the only way he's even breathing is through the help of an oxygen mask.

It's hard to look at him and not think that he deserves this. I've seen the bruises he's left on his daughter's body, and this is a small price he's had to pay for those.

“I'm so sorry, Merrit,” I whisper, grabbing her hand and holding it tight. “You shouldn't have to deal with this right now. But we'll figure out what really happened.”

Two light knocks on the door catch our attention, and we both look to see two police officers standing in the doorway with cups of steaming coffee in their hands. “Are you the next of kin?”

“I am,” Merrit says. She stands and looks at them with desperation in her eyes. I can't imagine what she's feeling right now, and my heart aches for her. Her father is a monster who made her life a living hell, but he is still her dad.

“We've arrested the men responsible for the attack,” one officer says, his voice soft and quiet as he breaks the news. “He was down at the pub, and the bartender said he was looking for a fight. He picked it with the wrong people, and they followed him out. You don't have to worry. They're in custody now.”

They give a few more details about the fight, telling us the different timelines and a few eyewitness accounts of what happened, but all I can focus on is Merrit and how she seems to be tuning all of it out. The cops eventually leave us alone in the room, and I wrap my arms around her to comfort her.

“He did this on purpose,” she says through a shaky breath. She looks up at me with watery eyes and shakes her head in disbelief. “I'm sure of it. That's why he said it was you who beat him up. He goes to the bars enough to know who he shouldn't mess with. He picked a fight with the wrong people on purpose. He did all of that, and now the doctors are saying he might not ever wake up.”

She loses her composure toward the end, and tears stream down her face. I can't tell if she's sad that her father might be gone forever or if she feels guilty because she thinks she's partially to blame.

“I'm done,” she croaks out after she composes herself. I raise my eyebrows at her, not fully understanding what she means. “I can't do this anymore. If he's here for the rest of his life, then so be it. I don't want to be here when he wakes up, and I don't want to talk to him again. I'm done with him for good.”

I wrap an arm around her shoulders and guide her toward the door, looking back at Ben Wright in the hospital bed one last time. “I'm proud of you,” I say, kissing the top of her head.

We walk out of the hospital room together and drive to our home—the place she will always be wanted and welcome by people who choose her just like she deserves.

TWELVE

Going from living with my dad to Talon and Sawyer was a bit of a learning curve. Not because living with two boys is difficult, but because I'm in a place I can actually enjoy. Being welcome where I live is a change I haven't quite gotten used to.

Gone are the days of shrinking myself down and walking on eggshells to avoid being seen. I don't want to be invisible and quiet anymore. If I want to listen to music and sing at the top of my lungs, I can, and I'm not judged for it. In fact, Sawyer often joins in with me—he knows a surprising number of Taylor Swift songs.

A lot of things have changed for me, but one thing that has always remained the same is my love of fiction. Because of that, Talon and Sawyer were kind enough to turn one of the oversized walk-in closets in the room into a little book nook for me. As much as I love spending time with them, it’s nice to get away and have a space to myself where I can be comfortable for the first time.

They decked it out with handmade shelves built into the wall, lined with just about every book on my TBR. I would have been happy to go to and from the library whenever I wanted one of them, but having my own copies to annotate and write notes in is special, especially since I have actual friends now. Friends who listen to my recommendations about books and want me to lend them copies.

I'm in the book nook, sitting in the overstuffed chair with a throw blanket tossed over my legs, when Talon knocks on the door. “Enter!” I shout, marking my place in the book and smiling up at him.

“What porn are you reading now?” Talon asks as he picks up the book and reads the title.

“It's not porn. It's art,” I say, snatching the book away from him to protect my ego just a bit. “I wouldn't expect you to understand that.”

Talon rolls his eyes and laughs at me before pulling a small package out from under his shirt. It's in a shiny gift box with a ribbon tied around it. He can clearly see that I'm confused about why I'm being given a gift right now, and he shrugs.

“This is just a little something I wanted to give you,” he says, urging me to open it.

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